Ashley Shiell works at CreekFire RV Resort in Savannah, Georgia. She’s a wife, mother, and childhood cancer advocate. The last title is a tough one. Ashley knows firsthand the shock parents experience when their child is diagnosed with cancer.
She also knows the devastating loss childhood cancer leaves behind.
In 2019, Ashley lost her teenage daughter, Kylie Shiell, following a nearly 18-month battle with leukemia.
Now she’s turning her heartbreak into hope for other families with the help of CreekFire RV Resort.
Ashley and CreekFire are raising money for CURE. It’s a cancer charity that raises money specifically for childhood cancer research. The goal is to improve childhood cancer treatments while hunting for a cure.
It’s a critical mission for Ashley because it’s not leukemia that took her daughter. It’s the devastating side effects of the treatment. Ashley details in an open letter why supporting CURE Childhood Cancer is so important.
A Mother’s Letter on Childhood Leukemia
My daughter, Kylie Nicole Shiell, was diagnosed with B-Cell ALL (a subtype of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) on Friday, April 13, 2018.
She was 13 years old.
Kylie was the sassiest, spunkiest, and strongest human I have ever met in my life. Prior to getting admitted to the hospital, her pediatrician asked if she had on white lipstick.
“See, Mom, I told you I was pale,” Kylie responded.
She looked at the doctor and added, “Mom thinks I’m being dramatic.”
Kylie gets admitted, the testing starts, she looks over at me and says I think I have either Leukemia or have Aplastic Anemia (good ole doctor Google).
It came back that she had B-Cell ALL.
With the diagnosis, her response to the doctor was, “Much better than being stuck in the hospital every single day… maybe, I can still play softball.”
That is who she was!
She was so athletic, funny, and spunky. The room lit up when she walked in.
Kylie celebrated her 14th birthday while admitted to the hospital for the “24-hour meth,” as she called it. It is a chemotherapy called methotrexate. This chemo runs for a straight 24 hours. Then you can’t be discharged until it has cleared your system due to possible kidney failure.
Cancer Treatment Setback #1
Week 2 of her diagnosis, I thought Kylie was having a normal reaction to chemotherapy. What did I know about it?
Instead, the combination of the steroids with one of the other chemotherapy pills caused her blood sugar to skyrocket. It put her in ketosis, which meant she now had to take insulin.
Still, she didn’t let that hold her back.
Battling Chemotherapy Side Effects with Color & Sarcasm
Before her hair fell out, Kylie said, “Hey Mom, leukemia’s color is orange. I’m not dying my hair orange, but let’s dye our hair purple. It’s fixing to fall out anyway.”
Dye our hair purple, we did!
A couple of weeks went by before her hair started falling out. That was tough for her. Kylie had such long, beautiful, thick hair. She loved her hair!
She ended up handling it like a rockstar!
One summer day, we walked into a Savannah bakery, and the lady said, “I like what you did there with your hair.”
Kylie looked at the lady and said, “Me? Thanks, chemotherapy will do it!” and smiled.
Major Cancer Treatment Setbacks
Kylie had several setbacks, including diabetes, septic shock, etc.
She made it to the maintenance phase. Doctors call this the “easy phase.”
Yeah right!
Kylie had just had lab work drawn before Memorial Day of 2019. Her labs were great!
Kylie had just had lab work drawn before Memorial Day of 2019. Her labs were great!
Doctors gave her the go-ahead to get in the river for Memorial Day Weekend. It was a chance to be as normal as she could with her friends and family. So, she did.
On Sunday, May 26, 2019, Kylie woke up with a spot on her abdomen, causing her a lot of pain. We went straight to the emergency room after several hours of the pain not dissipating.
By the time we got to the hospital, she had two spots on her abdomen.
They admitted her, looked for answers, and tried to control her pain.
Within one week, the spots went from the size of a fingernail to the size of a fist. There were also new spots – one on her spine and one on her hip bone. Kylie’s infectious disease doctor met with the surgeons and her oncologist. The team began debriding the wound, a procedure where infected tissue is removed from a wound, every other day
We received an answer in the second week of July.
It was Pythium Insidiosum, a mold-like pathogen.
None of her doctors had ever heard of it. They reached out to doctors around the United States. The only solution was to debride the wounds, combined with an immunotherapy shot.
As this progressed, Kylie had been without chemo since her initial spot on May 26.
By her 15th birthday on September 13, 2019, Kylie was finally looking and feeling great again! Her wounds were healing.
She walked the stadium at Truist Park at the Atlanta Braves baseball game on their Stand Up to Cancer night, with her cancer bestie!
By about October, Kylie had her last biopsy. It came back free and clear.
Just a few weeks later, she was in so much pain that she had to be admitted to the hospital. She was on fentanyl patches, morphine, and other meds. Nothing could control her pain.
I found out at that time, the wrong wound had been biopsied. Kylie’s infection had made its way into her bone marrow.
By November, Kylie was in the ICU. She no longer had feeling in her legs or arms. No teenage girl wants to live like that. They stopped the last scan due to pain at the top of her spine. The infection was everywhere.
My 15-year-old, spunky, sassy, strong, loving, beautiful girl took her last breath on earth on November 13, 2019.
How CURE Childhood Cancer Played a Role in Kylie’s Battle
You’re probably wondering where CURE Childhood Cancer comes in.
After Kylie was initially diagnosed, the nurse came to me and said the CURE ladies want to come in and meet y’all. Neither me, nor Kylie even knew what that meant.
I met the nicest, nicest ladies! Kerri on the first day. Mandy on the second day. They both had daughters who had childhood cancer and were doing amazing! They were local moms who knew what I was going through. Their daughters knew what Kylie was going through.
They brought us food every week. They gave us gas cards! They spoiled Kylie rotten to the core! The CURE families decorated Kylie’s room. She even spoke at events to raise awareness. Kylie did multiple news interviews to raise awareness; the list goes on.
See, cancer didn’t kill Kylie.
Cancer very rarely kills anyone. It’s the chemotherapy. It’s the terrible side effects of chemotherapy.
Less than 4% of funds from the American Cancer Institution go towards childhood cancer research. My daughter and millions of other children are given the same treatment that has been around since the 1970s.
How cool would it be if there was a cure for cancer and if we also had treatment options that didn’t kill their immune system?
It looks great on paper when you see the survival rate for ALL. It’s more than 80% in children. Sure, they’re in remission. Kylie was in remission.
I met many other families whose children were in remission, but many are still receiving treatment to prevent it from coming back. Those treatments literally kill their immune system, organs, etc.
CURE doesn’t just help with cancer research and funding. They also deliver meals to the families, counseling, financial assistance, but so much more than that, they become your family for life.
I am asking that you join the FIGHT, GO GOLD IN SEPTEMBER! Let’s CURE Childhood Cancer together.
Donating to CURE in Honor of Kylie
Ashley is now raising awareness and money in honor of her daughter, Kylie. You can donate online through September 8, 2025.
A $30 donation is all it takes to make a difference. Donors also receive a 2025 CURE flag, which can be shipped to your home or picked up at CreekFire RV Resort in Savannah, Georgia.
Keep Kylie’s memory alive and join the fight against childhood cancer.